Away from home

I am in Puerto Rico right now for work. It's the third time I have travelled since Cheeks has been born. It was VERY hard for me to leave him the first time (at about 5 months), hard for me to leave the second time, and it's been the HARDEST for me to leave this time. Since the last time I travelled, he has developed such a unique and adorable personality. I have developed such a bond with him, and I hate being away.

I found out we get free WiFi at the hotel, so Doc is going to install Facetime on the computer at home and we are going to video chat tomorrow after work. I cannot wait!! I wonder if he realizes that I am not there - or if he has no concept of the amount of time I've been gone. Luckily, this is a short trip - I will be back on Wednesday night.

OK - while I want to blog more right now, I have to go get prepared for tomorrow's meeting. Too bad it can't just be a power point presentation on Cheeks - I'd ace that one :)

Why I Blog

Jen from Adventures of Jen, Tiff and Chunk from posed the question "Why do you blog". I thought it would make for an interesting blog entry, so here we go!

I blog mainly because I want to document Cheeks' childhood for him and myself. I enjoy looking back at past posts to see what was going on a few months ago, and to remind myself how far we have come. I admit, while I have the best intentions of creating a scrap book as Cheeks' baby book, I am horrible at keeping it updated in a timely fashion. This blog is kind of like a virtual baby book for me. I can look back and see what he has accomplished and when. One of these days, I'll transfer that information to his scrap book, but until then, this is a great way to document it quickly and easily.

I also enjoy reading other parents' blogs who have similar families to ours. When we first became pregnant, I had a hard time finding any resources for two mom families. All the sudden, I found one blog who's owner documented their life as part of a two-mom family. That blog linked to other blogs and so forth and so on. I now have an incredible amount of experiences that I can relate to - all from this blogging community.

Happiest Boy Ever!

No words this post - just a video :)

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Chaos and Order

There are some people in this world who seem to have a very relaxed life. There house is always clean, household items are always available, schedules are followed. Our household is not one of those. We always TRY to be one of those households, but we just aren't. If you were to look up "Chaos" in the dictionary, you would inevitably find "home of Cheeks'" as the definition.

For the longest time, this stressed me out and made me sad that I didn't have the standard "orderly" life I wanted for my child. Then I realized last night, we are happy! I may have left a dish or two in the sink this past week, and we may need to do quite a bit of cleaning this weekend, but our son is happy and healthy. He, himself, has a schedule that we really stick to - and he has created this schedule himself for the most part:

8am - wake up
9am - breakfast
noon - naptime
2pm - lunch
5pm - mommy home from work and playtime
6pm - dinner
7:30pm - bath and bedtime

I also find that I have somewhat of a schedule for myself - at least on days that I work:

6am - alarm goes off - round 1
6:10 - round 2
6:20 - round 3
6:30 - finally out of bed/showered/dressed
7am - take out dog
7:15 - get lunch together
7:30 - off to work
8am - start work
4:30pm - come home!!
5:00 - playtime with Cheeks
6:00 - Dinner time
7:30 - Bath and Bedtime routine with Cheeks
8pm - Dinner dishes
8:30pm Coupons/TV time
10:30pm - Bedtime

So while on the outside, it may not look like it, my life isn't complete chaos - there is some order in it. I just had to sit down and blog to find out where that order was. Next steps - add hours into the day to clean and organize the house!!

Score!!!

Ladies and gentlemen - after almost two weeks of consistently waking up in the middle of the night, Cheeks has been asleep from 8pm to....?? He is still sleeping folks!!! :-D

So Tired

Mr. Cheeks has decided that he will wake up nightly between 3 and 5am. He had always been a good sleeper - since about 10 weeks old. I think at first he started waking up because he was cutting FOUR teeth at once. Now, the teeth have cut, and he is still waking up. I now believe it has become habit. I had been giving in and giving Cheeks a bottle when he'd wake up...and now we are paying for it. Last night, I decided enough is enough. I officially let him CIO. 20 minutes later, the boy was fast asleep, and I was back off to dreamland. He didn't wake up until 8 am! Here is to hoping tonight is a bit easier. We are going to continue to CIO until he is back to his normal sleep pattern of sleeping through the night!

In other news, as some may know, Cheeks is an avid car/truck lover. Anything with wheels he LOVES. So last night, Doc and I purchased our boy a Little Tykes Cozy Coupe. He was so excited - he wouldn't get out of it!



This morning he woke up and went straight for his car. I can't wait to take him outside this afternoon to cruise around :)

One Year Old

Cheeks is officially ONE!! I can no longer call him my little baby - he is now my big boy (Although he will ALWAYS be my little baby) :):)

The party was a success and we had a fantastic time. We had Elmo come out which the kids and parents loved! Cheeks - he wasn't so much loving Elmo.



Other than that part, he had a great time. It was one big playdate in our backyard - which is exactly what we wanted. It was stressful to put together, but in the end, so worth it.

A quick recap on Cheeks' progress in life:

• Over the weekend, he started waving hi! He opens and closes both hands - he gets so proud of himself!
• He still loves his books. He will turn the right side up if they are upside down.
• Still LOVES cars, trucks, and anything with wheels. He turns them over and plays with the wheels. Chuck the Dumptruck is his favorite.
• We have officially purchased our last canister of forumla - for the most part, Cheeks drinks whole milk now! (Sometimes with a bit of chocolate in it!!)
• He is a very loving little boy - he gives hugs and kisses to mama, mommy, and his books.
• Still furniture cruising - not ready to let go yet!
• We think he is saying "Book" and "Cat"

We have his one year dr appointment this morning - weight and height to follow in an edit to this post later!